Within Reach
by rhyejess
Summary: Oneshot alternate reality, bordering on utopian ranch fic. Ennis doesn't marry Alma, but does show up at Aguirre's the next summer.


**Disclaimer:** These are Annie's characters, and I make no money from them.

**AN:** Thanks for Alexis (wannabebrit) for brainstorming the bunny with me, and then letting me use it. Obviously this bunny could be interpretted about a million ways, but here's my one. Unbeta'd.

* * *

Within Reach

Aguirre was here. His car'd been parked out front when Ennis pulled up in his own beat up truck. Ennis'd spent his earnings from last summer to buy it, and it took damn near all his earnings to keep it running, too. He was leasing out the old beat-up Forbes place, keeping two horses and working on Forbes' stock under Morton, the earthen old foreman. Morton had hitched up grey, bushy eyebrows, wanting to know why Ennis would leave the set-up to go out and herd sheep for a summer. Morton thought he was crazy.

He probably was. In fact, he knew it. He'd known it that day in the fall when he'd stuck around the ranch and smoked and drank himself into a stupor while Alma was sitting at a church in a white dress, too. It'd taken the better part of a year for him to pony up the guts to admit it. He was crazy alright, a crazy queer promisebreakin' no-count. But he figured there was one bright spot left to him, and if it was buried under the stench of foaling ewe, that's where he'd go to find it, too.

When he tried to reason what made him stand up Alma that day, he came to the end of himself. He nearly hadn't done it. Probably shouldn't have. He could be making babies back on that little run-down ranch with cute little Alma Beers. Ennis had always wanted a son. He tucked his hands further down in his pockets, fisting them in secret, trying to hold onto the last fragments of his boyhood dreams as they went sliding through his fingers. He must not have wanted a son that badly, because he was here, in Signal, and not in Riverton.

Whether Aguirre was aware of Ennis's slumped shoulders held up by the side of his trailer, Ennis didn't know, and didn't give much thought. When he'd first turned left onto the highway he'd known that he had years of hard stares and harder words to live down, most of which he deserved. If the worst Aguirre did was ignore him, Ennis was counting stars.

It was like being shot through the heart, like having the hurt and sore and guilt and fear of a heavy year washed away in a torrential downpour. Ennis blinked at the tears in his eyes as the beat-up pickup, looking no worse for one more year of toil, rattled around the corner into the parking lot. It didn't park, just screeched to a unkept hault in the middle of the gravel square of Earth. Ennis couldn't look, afraid that he might see something he hadn't counted on: disdain, anger, contempt, or worst of all, maybe Jack didn't even recognize him, didn't remember it. Maybe it had never existed at all.

He didn't dare to hope as boots met little stones, sent the stones rolling.

"Ennis?" The word rang clear and true, and full of need and pride and joy.

"I'm. Um." Ennis pushed off the wall, eyes glued to the ground as if they could keep him on it, keep him from floating away.

"Well, you..."

Ennis looked up to meet Jack's eyes. Jack's cheekbones were more prounounced, his stubble deeper, his shoulders wider. He'd grown. Twenty years old and in tight denim head to toe.

"You here 'bout the job?" Jack finished, having swallowed whatever was piling up in his throat, just as Ennis felt whatever had been stuck in his own finally glide down smooth.

Ennis didn't hesitate a moment past seeing the ghost of lonely fear and doubt whisper through Jack's eyes. No need for that no more. Forgetting himself and everything else, Ennis closed the gap. Jack was still stammering when Ennis's arms closed around him. It wasn't a bear hug at all. Not a gruff, good-to-see-you deal. Ennis's hands splayed on Jack's back. Catching scent, whatever was left of Ennis untied itself. He was unravelled, hard as rock and home at last.

He spun Jack, slamming him up against the side of the trailor, Aguirre so much dust in a dusty place. Pinning Jack with a hand to either side of his broadened rib cage, leaning into him against the world, Ennis drew his own breath, a year without fresh air to mend, from Jack's mouth. Jack only faltered a second before giving back as good as he got, and better.

* * *

"Well, what do we do now, huh?" Jack was staring at the ceiling, sprawled naked, sweat-soaked, and well-used across the bed at the Northernaire Inn, a truckstop motel that rented by the hour.

Ennis looked down on him from where he was scrambling into a shirt. Clothed again, he skirted to the window and peered out, not sure what he was looking for. It was a knawing anxiousness he would learn to live with. He sighed hard against that weight, and sank down next to Jack. "Well, I was thinkin'... I been workin' on this little ranch up in Riverton. Feeder cattle, mostly. Small operation. Well, you know them feeder cattle, they finish grazin' early summer, but we keep 'em in 'til late. What if we was to market them earlier? Carry more cows. Bet you could get in two seasons, if you sell some light ones. They say that's the way the trend's goin' anyway."

Jack rolled over, staring off into the room, back working as he rubbed arms. Ennis watched every movement. "Two men. What do you think, we could carry 200 head? You talking one hundred twice a year, or two hundred once a year? But they got a be consistent. Most local farmer-feeders up Lightning Flat way are starting to fold. Can't produce consistent head, or can't get the jump off people using commercial feeders."

Ennis sucked on his lower lip. "Yup. Got a try, though. We could do two hundred twice a year."

Jack let out a low whistle.

"You ain't afraid a no hard work, are you Jack?"

Jack chuckled. "Hard kind's my favorite kind." It earned him a shove, fair and square.

"We could probably convince Forbes, owner where I work, to let us try it out, anyway. Probably won't be able to work with that foreman, though."

Jack turned back over and nodded. "Alright. Too bad for Aguirre, huh? Losing a couple ranch stiffs like us to our own spread."

Ennis shrugged. "Fuck Aguirre. You know they say the future of sheepherdin's in fencing and loose lambing?"

"Yeah? Well, don't you know everything, Ennis del Mar."

"There's some things I know." Ennis sighed and lay back down on the bed, pulling Jack close to him.

"Yeah I know those things too."

They entwined arms and bodies, staring up at the ceiling. Jack naked, Ennis clothed, both staring at the same picture-dream that hovered not in the sky or in the stars, but at the ceiling of a by-the-hour motel, where, if nothing else, it certainly was within the reach of two grown men.


End file.
